


Liability

by eringiles



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-11
Updated: 2012-05-11
Packaged: 2017-11-05 04:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/402542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eringiles/pseuds/eringiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liability (noun): something or <b>someone that</b> is a hindrance or <b>puts an individual</b> or group <b>at a disadvantage</b>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liability

‘I’m impressed.’ John was leaning against the doorjamb of a cheap hotel room in the East End of London, clinging onto the door with his other hand. John had clearly travelled the furthest distance he could within the radius of the M25 with the minimal amount of effort on his part, yet Sherlock could see by the beads of sweat forming along his brow that it had been at a cost. There was the smell of miasma floating out through the barely opened door, the way John was trying to resist clutching at his stomach with his arm that was in a cast, his breathing still laboured, black eye now slowly turning an ugly yellow. John Watson was in a bad way.

 

_John. John, the ambulance is on its way. You need to tell me what to do. John!_

 

Sherlock just raised an eyebrow at John’s greeting in question.

 

‘Took you less time than I would have thought to notice my absence. So either the great Sherlock Holmes was prodded in the direction of caring, or you couldn’t resist even the limited puzzle of finding me. How long’d it take you then? Ten? Twenty minutes?’

 

The vein on John’s forehead was twitching slightly as he shifted from one foot to the other. Sherlock wondered if his limp had come back.

 

‘Security cameras caught you leaving the hospital at 3.18 this afternoon, but you didn’t show up on any after that which lead me to believe you’d avoided the tube. Walking far in your condition-‘

 

‘Shut up, Sherlock. I don’t care how you found me, I just want you to bugger off.’

 

Sherlock was momentarily stunned. John had never interrupted him during a deduction before unless it was to spare someone’s feelings. The door was shutting in his face now, and Sherlock automatically reached out to stop it slamming. He didn’t put his foot in between the door and the frame, because he could see that John was angry, and he knew from past experience that the saying ‘beware the fury of a patient man’ rung true in John’s case.

 

‘John, I think-‘

 

‘Sherlock, you told Mycroft I was useless! A burden to you! I could have died the other day for you, Sherlock. I could have-‘ John lurched and before Sherlock could say anything John was limping towards the bathroom, leaving behind him a half hearted effort of shutting the door on Sherlock a second time.

 

There was the clatter of plastic on porcelain as Sherlock shut the hotel room door behind himself as he listened to John retching. There was a muted thud as John fell sideways onto the floor, his foot appearing in Sherlock’s line of sight as he peered in through the gap between bathroom door and jamb. Sherlock’s hand reached out for the door and he pushed it open slightly with his palm. He expected John to lash out and attempt to slam the door in his face for a third time, but John was too preoccupied with emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

 

Sherlock stood in the doorway watching as John spat into the toilet, panting, clutching at his stomach, head leant against the cistern.

 

‘You’re angry.’ Sherlock felt that it was prudent to state the obvious in John’s weakened state, in case he had missed anything behind the fever-glazed eyes.

 

‘Of course I’m bloody angry! You told him I was a liability.’ John was clearly not going to let something as trivial as an infected wound stop him from his annoyance at Sherlock.

 

‘I can cope with you calling me stupid, Sherlock, god knows you’ve done it a hundred times. I can deal with that, but a liability after I’ve just-‘ John paused, clearly trying to swallow down the nausea. John turned away, disgusted.

 

‘Mycroft wants you to come work for him.’

 

John wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before he brought his gaze up to Sherlock.

 

‘So you told him I was a liability?’

 

Sherlock seemed to consider this for a long moment as he reached for the hand towel still neatly folded on top of the toilet that smelt vaguely of fish. He handed it down to John.

 

‘I will grudgingly admit that Mycroft and I are disgustingly similar when it comes to one aspect of our lives, and that is we do not share well with others. He rates you just as highly as I do and therefore wants you to work for him, which would leave you with absolutely no time to accompany me on cases.’

 

‘So you made the decision for me?’ John’s eyes were drooping slightly now, and Sherlock could see the anger abating in the slump of John’s shoulders. Sherlock didn’t answer him, though.

 

‘John, I do not believe you are incompetent as a physician, nor do I believe you to be an absolute idiot.’

 

‘Thanks,’ John managed before his stomach was heaving again.

 

‘Therefore I’d suggest we get you to a hospital.’

 

It took John a moment before he nodded once, decisively. He struggled to reign in his limbs enough to get them under himself.

 

‘You could help me up, you know,’ John said, looking up at Sherlock.

 

Sherlock didn’t realise quite how much John was shaking until they were standing, and Sherlock feared that John’s legs would not hold him. But John seemed reluctant to let his body fail him, he was moving away from Sherlock under his own steam out of the bathroom and back into the hotel room.

 

Sherlock reached out to flush the toilet, if only to try and give John a moment to gather himself.

 

‘Sherlock.’ There was a hint of urgency in John’s voice. When Sherlock moved out of the bathroom, John was leaning against the wall by the bed, looking down in fascination as he pressed his thumb and forefinger together, both of them sticky with blood. There was a dark patch on John’s jumper.

 

John sighed, as if it was a minor inconvenience. ‘I’ve popped my stitches.’

 

‘Hospital,’ Sherlock said decisively as he picked up John’s bag, coat, and then moved towards John with some hesitation, like he wasn’t sure his help was wanted. John, as usual when it came to matters of sentiment, took the decision out of his hands and reached out for Sherlock.

 

* * *

 

If the nurses were surprised to see John again so soon they didn’t say anything. They reprimanded him for not following instructions, and one of them even told him he should know better. By the time they were released from the clinical smell, John was looking suitably cowed and slipping towards the healing sleep he desperately needed. Sherlock managed to keep him awake in the cab home by continuing his tirade on Mycroft and the audacity he had in trying to steal John.

 

John, for his part, just smiled dopily and uttered vaguely placating words. The anger that had been directed at Sherlock earlier had clearly dissipated into amusement. It morphed back into anger briefly as he stumbled from the cab and in the door of Baker Street, but it was more rage at his own inability to co-ordinate his own limbs rather than directed towards Sherlock.

 

‘You were right, you know.’ John was laid out on the sofa, eyes at half-mast, barely taking in the flickering images on the television screen of idiots trying to compete for a measly sum of cash they would no doubt spend on frivolities. A cooling cup of tea was sat on the floor beside him, a blanket draped over his legs which Mrs. Hudson had wrestled from the back of John’s armchair after she’d finished making a wide array of baked goods that now litter the kitchen table.

 

‘Hmm?’ Sherlock didn’t look up from his phone. He was arguing with Lestrade about coming to a crime scene. Sherlock refused to leave John to his own devices again, when it was clear that John may very well be a brilliant doctor, but he clearly had complete disregard for his own well being. Not that this was the reason Sherlock was giving Lestrade. Sherlock was trying to convince the Detective Inspector that triple homicides and locked rooms were merely child’s play.

 

‘I am a liability.’

 

Sherlock stopped texting and looked up at John from across the room.

 

‘How so?’

 

‘Because I’m putting you at a disadvantage.’

 

Sherlock’s eyes roamed to John’s computer, still open on the coffee table, catching the title of the Wikipedia page still open upon it. Sherlock paused a moment before he went back to his text, deleting it before starting again.

 

‘I wouldn’t call solving a case from the living room a disadvantage; I’d call it a challenge.’

 

John laughed, but it soon turned into a hiss, his hand going to his side.

 

‘You know they only let you out because they thought someone would be with you at all times for the first twenty-four hours.’ Sherlock’s phone was now on the side of the armchair and he was contemplating the limited facts Lestrade had laid out before him.

 

‘Mrs. Hudson is downstairs.’

 

‘She won’t hear you over the television.’

 

‘Ours or hers?’

 

Sherlock paused before he answered, hand going to his mobile again, something had just clicked in his brain. ‘Both.’

 

John yawned while Sherlock finished his text to Lestrade. ‘That was a short lived challenge.’

 

When Sherlock looked up from his phone John was trying to pull himself from the sofa. Sherlock went to him without considering whether he was wanted or needed. For once it came natural to Sherlock to be wrapping an arm around John’s waist and pulling him close as the blanket fell away from his legs. John just looked at him, confused for a moment before he smiled slightly, nodding, accepting the help.

 

* * *

 

John was asleep. Lestrade had stopped texting Sherlock. Sherlock himself was dozing. On the edge of his vision he could see John laying a puddle of his own blood, Sherlock’s own hands grappling with the slippy substance as he pressed his leather gloved hands to the wound in John’s abdomen.

 

_John. I’m sorry. I’m-_

‘You don’t have to watch over me all night.’ John’s voice was husky in the gloom of Sherlock’s bedroom. John had taken one look at the stairs and made his own shuffling way to Sherlock’s room, proclaiming that Sherlock never used it anyway. Sherlock opened his eyes, blinking slightly to adjust to the change in light levels.

 

‘Lack of outside stimulus helps me to think.’

 

‘My own wheezy breathing is keeping me awake.’ John sighed. ‘I get it, Sherlock.’ The covers on the bed rustled as John rolled over, grunting and groaning and hissing in pain as he did so. Sherlock didn’t dare move.

 

‘I get it,’ John repeated. John’s breathing had eased slightly now he was lying on his side and Sherlock moved his head so he was looking right at John, his eyes glancing at John’s stomach as if he could see through the sheets to the fresh stitches before his eyes climbed to John’s, only to find them staring back at Sherlock. Sherlock’s heart jolted slightly at John’s rather glazed look before John blinked and the terror dissipated only to leave relief in its wake.

 

‘You called me a liability because it’s true. Because I do put you at a disadvantage. Because you care.’

 

Sherlock wanted to deny it, found himself swallowing past the inexplicable lump in his throat. His lips parted slightly as he tried to form an argument, but he had nothing. It was true, without realising it John Watson had become a liability.

 

‘Get some sleep, John.


End file.
